Bitcoin Knots Plans New Proof-of-Work Algorithm After BIP-110 Enforcement Fails

Bitcoin Knots said on August 11 that it plans to choose a new proof-of-work algorithm for the stalled BIP-110 chain after the minority fork produced only two blocks.

The move sets up another confrontation over Bitcoin’s block policy, while the main network continues producing blocks normally.

Knots Pushes New Algorithm as the Fork Stalls

Anyone who had already switched was told to upgrade to the latest Knots client, which the project said would attempt to repair the chain state automatically, and miners restarting nodes were told to add the line maxtipage=2592000 to their configuration file.

It also said a new proof-of-work algorithm would be selected at 14:00 UTC on August 11 through a deterministic random process among proposed candidates. A hash was posted alongside the algorithm announcement as what Knots called a proof of fairness for the random selection process.

The announcement came after the BIP-110 chain stopped at block 961,633.

“The Bitcoin network is under attack, and block production has slowed significantly,” wrote the Knots team. “The community is preparing mitigations to resolve the situation.”

However, a community note attached to the post pointed out that the main Bitcoin chain had continued normally. It described the reported “attack” and slowdown as affecting only the minority BIP-110 fork, which split at block 961,632 with roughly 2.5% support.

Miners and Developers Remain Split

The mining pool Roughnecks, which had been producing blocks on the BIP-110 branch, announced early Saturday that it was pausing operations, calling the pause an escalation rather than a retreat. By Sunday, it reversed course, saying it would resume mining “ASAP” on the stalled chain tip using software it referred to as Knots-RDTS, adding, “We’re wildcatting again.”

Bitcoin’s price barely reacted to any of the drama and was trading around $64,000 at the time of writing, down just over 1% in 24 hours and about 47% below its level a year ago, after twice failing to hold above $65,400 in recent sessions.